Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Stages

NewFolks may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

Looking for a puberty book for your tween that’s gender-inclusive? We’ve got 4

4 amazing gender-inclusive books about puberty for your tween

Sarah Prager
By

Since the classic The Care & Keeping of You, books explaining the changes of puberty tweens can expect have been essential for parents to gift their children. Reading a book in privacy that answers all of the questions about things like sprouting pubic hair is more comfortable than getting a lecture from your parent! There are dozens of pages of information to cover on healthy relationships, how hormones work, acne, body odor, voice dropping, menstruation, and cliques, so books like the four we’ve curated below will get all of the information across so your child can come to you with questions but you don’t need to have every single talk with them.

These books often use highly gendered language like saying only girls have a uterus or girls only get crushes on boys or that there are only two genders. The four books below reject all of those concepts and all youth will feel welcomed and affirmed reading them with illustrations and language that are LGBTQ-inclusive. Read more about why these four puberty books are informational and inclusive, making them excellent options for your tween.

Recommended Videos

Puberty Is Gross, but Also Really Awesome by Gina Loveless and Lauri Johnston

As the title hints, the tone of this book tackles puberty with humor and a teen-friendly tone. Delivering fun facts in a lighthearted voice, the book covers everything from acne, sweat, genitalia, self-confidence, sleep, nutrition, menstruation, mental health, social media, dating, and much more. It doesn’t cover sex except for a couple of passing mentions.

Related

The language is very inclusive of all genders and uses “assigned male” and “assigned female” instead of “male” and “female” when discussing bodies. There is also a full chapter dedicated to gender expression.

The Every Body Book: The LGBTQ+ Inclusive Guide for Kids about Sex, Gender, Bodies, and Families by Rachel E. Simon and Noah Grigni

For readers ages eight to 12, this book covers sex, gender, bodies, and families in an LGBTQ-inclusive way just like the subtitle promises. Reproduction, hormones, and consent are all covered in gender-neutral language that celebrates all sexual identities and gender identities. Melissa Carnagey, founder of Sex Positive Families, says The Every Body Book is “inclusive, medically accurate, gender-affirming, body positive, and comprehensive in its delivery of the education young people need to understand bodies, identities, relationships, and sexual health” and adds that “it delivers information using a tone that invites young people’s curiosities and normalizes their unique experiences.”

You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty, and Other Things by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth

The third in a trilogy after What Makes A Baby for ages three to seven and Sex Is A Funny Word for ages seven to 10, comes You Know, Sex for ages 10 to 14. While the title implies this is a sex-ed book more than a puberty book, there is plenty of important information about changing bodies in here for parents looking for a two-in-one option that uses gender-inclusive language. This book is less about body odor and sprouting hair and more about consent, boundaries, stigma, safety, families, pleasure, social justice, and self-discovery.

The book is fully LGBTQ-inclusive in every way, such as including a transgender boy on a page about periods. Same-sex relationships are included, as are intersex and asexual people. Reviewer Mombian says it is “arguably the most comprehensive and inclusive book on puberty to date, it deserves to be read by every young person.”

You-ology: A Puberty Guide for EVERY Body by Trish Hutchison, Kathryn Lowe, and Melisa Holmes

Published by the trusted American Academy of Pediatrics in 2022, You-ology tackles the issues of puberty in a gender-inclusive way. Using fictional characters who navigate the bodily and emotional changes tweens experience, this book leverages those examples to illustrate the information kids need to know and process about puberty. These characters include four transgender and nonbinary youth and the topics covered include pronouns and transgender-specific puberty concerns like wearing a binder to keep developing breasts flat against a chest or going on puberty-blocking medications.

Parents can feel comfortable giving this book to their younger tweens since it is purely about personal puberty changes and not about sex and intimate relationships with others. Besides acknowledging the transgender topics, the authors cover physical issues like body part development, menstruation, and acne and emotional ones like friendships, bullying, and cliques. While it doesn’t go so far as to talk about dating, it does mention crushes and while it doesn’t talk about sex, it does talk about masturbation. All of these topics are covered in gender-inclusive language.

Which of these four books might be the best for your child? Depending on which topics you want included, there is something for everyone. Whichever you choose, answering your growing tween’s questions is important and these books will help.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Sarah Prager
Sarah Prager
Contributor
Sarah is a writer and mom who lives in Massachusetts. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, National…
2023 is the time to start saving for your child’s education: 4 expert tips
These tips will get you on your way to saving in 2023
Daughter placing money in piggy bank as Mom watches

Most parents not only have the normal day-to-day expenses that go with having children, but they still carry around decades-old student loan debt. As parents, we don't want that future for our children. That's why since we've been through it, we've put together four tips to make 2023 the year you start saving for your child's education. These tips come with the help of our expert, Patricia Roberts, COO of The Gift of College, Inc.

It starts with the separate account
Kinds of accounts to use to save

Read more
These books will teach your toddler to talk about their feelings
Toddler having a grumpy day? Sit down and read all about it
Girl with glasses holding book

It's hard enough for grown-ups to talk about their feelings. Asking a toddler to understand and cohesively express complicated emotions is a bit of a lofty request. At times, it can feel like a completely futile one. Happiness, sadness, excitement, and nervousness are more than just vocabulary words for a little one to learn. These are emotions that have real mental and physical manifestations in kids and adults. They can make our hearts race, our palms sweat, and our tears fall. It's not easy for toddlers to wrap their little brains around how feelings impact their bodies and minds. It's confusing, to say the least. Adults are still trying to fully understand their emotions.
One way to help your little one process their feelings and find the right words to use when expressing them is through reading. Nothing puts things into perspective like a little parent-child story-time session. So, curl up together on the couch, cuddle in, and calmly flip through a few sweet, silly, and meaningful books that seek to define and describe how our feelings affect everything we do.
Not sure what children's books make for a great read on the subject of feelings? We've rounded up 10 toddler books about feelings to help you teach your child to channel and express their emotions in a productive way. Whether your tyke is going through a difficult behavioral stage, exploring new friendships, or struggling with change, these feeling books for toddlers can help your kiddos identify and navigate all those confounding emotions and hard-to-articulate thoughts going through their heads.

Best feeling books for toddlers
Reading to kids is a great way to spend quality time and help them down the road to becoming a lifelong reader. It's also a perfect pick for teaching toddlers about their feelings. Add these feeling books to your library for bedtime or anytime reads.
Lots of Feelings, by Shelly Rotner
A picture is worth a thousand words, especially when you're trying to explain a difficult concept to a child. This is one of our favorite books about emotions for toddlers. It offers real-life photographs of children to show the facial expressions that accompany common feelings. It's a great way to give kiddos visual cues to help them express their feelings and decode those of the people around them.

Read more
The best Juneteenth books middle schoolers will want to read
Five kids reading on a bench outside

Here's a historical truth that a lot of people don't realize: The end of slavery didn't instantaneously occur when Abraham Lincoln enacted the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Nor did it end two years later with the finish of the Civil War. In fact, many slaves in the South were purposely kept in the dark -- this was most notably the case in Texas.

But in 1865, after the end of the Civil War, General Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas, to spread the news. It took time, but this kicked off the actual release of hundreds of thousands of slaves in the area.

Read more